About eight years ago I covered the Farmington High School football team in its inaugural season as a varsity program. It wasn't pretty.

The team had a lot of heart, but not a lot of football acumen. Or a scoreboard. Or printed-out rosters.

A few years later, Farmington's season opener was featured on television, mostly because they were playing Raymond, a first-year program. On the very first play from scrimmage to open the game, Raymond (again, a first-year program) scored on a 70-yard touchdown run.

Tiger football had been a mess for a while, but now it's finally stable and heading in the right direction under coach Art Jacobs. It's taken a long time, but Farmington, after merging with Nute from the neighboring town of Milton, is a legitimate playoff contender. The Tigers beat Gilford 37-14 in their season opener and have an excellent chance to win this Saturday's home game against Newfound.

I covered last week's game, a 21-6 loss to another playoff contender, Campbell, which is down from Division V. What I saw in Farmington was a confident football team led by competent coaches who have their boys believing they can win. (Although the team now has a scoreboard, it still didn't work on Saturday. Small steps).

The experience also left me convinced that the only place where a program like Farmington-Nute can find its footing is in good old D-VI, a division that will be eliminated next year under a radical and experimental realignment proposed by the NHIAA.

Next year, six divisions will consolidate to three, meaning Farmington-Nute and the nine other teams in its conference will be lumped in with six of the nine that currently make up Division V, plus Fall Mountain. In other words, whereas Farmington could establish itself as a big fish in the small pond of D-VI, it will be thrown into the much larger lake of a new super-conference. Its chances of winning a championship will be twice as difficult as they are this year.

I've heard all the arguments against having six divisions in New Hampshire high school football — the state is too small for so many divisions; it lessens the accomplishment of winning a state championship; the current divisions don't have enough teams; all the other sports have either three or four divisions.

So what? Let's start with the idea that awarding six championship plaques lessens the accomplishment of winning one. Is that such a bad thing? Or do the larger schools like Exeter and Bishop Guertin somehow resent the fact that Inter-Lakes/Moultonborough can also brag about being a state champion? I don't think so.

If any sport needs a larger number of divisions with fewer teams, it's football. Look at the numbers this year. Bishop Brady of Concord, which has the smallest roster of any football-playing school in the state, took the field with a dangerously thin roster last season. Farmington had to merge with Nute to survive. Fall Mountain didn't even field a team this season because of low turnout.

The physical demands of football and the risk of injury makes it extremely important that schools are aligned carefully, and six divisions give the state much more flexibility in that area.

A division with 10 teams also means that everyone gets to play against each other. The top four make the playoffs, and a true champion is determined. Next year, the three state champions will have only played about half the teams in their division.

If anything, New Hampshire should consider adopting eight-man football for small schools. Teams wouldn't have to worry so much about depth and injuries, equipment costs and general overhead would be lower, and it would encourage even smaller schools, such as Portsmouth Christian, to adopt the sport.

It will be interesting to see how the new three-division format works out. Perhaps the small schools will integrate themselves into a larger division nicely and mismatches will be few. Hopefully, if the sport's popularity grows, thin rosters will no longer be a problem.

Should the NHIAA adopt the three-division format permanently, let's remember Division VI as a place where small football schools like Farmington-Nute could find their footing, rather than one that produced an unworthy state champion.

John Doyle is a staff sports writer and Sunday sports editor at Foster's Daily Democrat. Contact him at jdoyle@fosters.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnDoyle603.